Silence
by ExtremeEly23
Summary: The mysterious girl on the swing set, what secrets does she hide?


The little girl on the swing, with the scar on her cheek, her little ponytail swaying to and fro as she rocks forward and back, never able to quite get off the ground.

Her ponytail was always nicer than mine, her soft tresses obeying that small blue scrunchie. My hair looked so similar to hers, that same silver tinge, that same short length.

I wanted to grow mine long, perhaps she did too. Hers would always look better than mine, though. I don't mind.

She never talks to anyone, that little girl, her only enjoyment seems to be in that swing, and yet she never seems to enjoy it. Her eyes are so distant, so vacant; her smile so small and frail, much like herself.

I asked her one day, about her scar, that is. That frail smile of hers that always seemed to grow, ever so slightly, when I sat on the swing next to her;

It shattered.

Her eyes were empty now, an emptiness forced down upon something, emptiness when there was none.

Was emptiness easier for her? Did she like the quiet of those autumn evenings, when it was just the two of us on that playground, on that swingset, at the top of an empty hill; Did she like them more than when the other children came?

I never really knew if she liked talking to me, but I certainly liked talking to her.

No other little girl or boy would dare make eye contact with me. I was a 'troublemaker', a 'rowdy kid'. I liked to watch that little boy whine and cry as he wiped the sand from his face.

I saw him swinging in Her swing, backward and forward, far too high. She sat beneath a tree with her arms around her legs, eyes filled with that same false emptiness as the evening I asked her, with the same smell in the air of the last of Autumn.

One day she appeared with another scar, a small one on her other cheek.

I was alone on the swings that day, a winter afternoon, so cold and dead. I saw her stumble up the hill, hand over her cheek.

She slowed when she saw me, moving slowly to her swing to sit, curling up her knees, wrapping her arms around them; burying the lower half of her head into the folds of her old, worn, blue sweatshirt.

She didn't say hi, she never did.

She never once spoke a word.

Today seemed different though, her eyes were wide and frantic, although her face was not. Her whole body shook, so small on that swing.

I wonder if she thought I couldn't see.

I wonder if she didn't care.

We sat there for a long time, watching the pink sky fade to blue. Not the blue she liked, I could tell. Not the pale, soft blue of that favourite pretty skirt she liked to wear. Not the soft iris of that worn, old sweatshirt.

I loved the blue of the night sky, how it stretched across the far horizons, dark but shimmering, a backdrop for the stars.

I looked over to her, she had lowered her arms, and wrapped her small fingers around the chains of the swing.

The metal must've been so cold.

Did she even notice?

I saw her sweatshirt, so worn, but always clean, stained in crimson. A cloud of auburn had seeped across both sleeves, pale pink against the light blue sky.

A small drop of blood dripped from the cut and fell to the sand beneath her feet.

We both stared at that spot on the earth, dyed red, and I finally saw how small she was.

We were the same height, the same build, and yet she looked so very small on that night, a whisper of the shadow of the girl I knew.

I hopped off the swing then, plucking a broad leaf from a tree nearby. I handed it to her, telling her to press it to her cheek.

She looked at me blankly, eyes still wide in terror. I grabbed her hand and I saw her whole body flinch.

Releasing some pressure, I gently placed the leaf in her palm, and moved her own hand to her cheek. She slowly began pressing against the wound, and I nodded and let go, sitting down on the grass.

I'd never been up here this late, but I wondered if she had. She seemed so content to sit and be among the stars up here, they were so clear and bright.

She looked so tired on that swing, arm on the verge of giving out from just holding the leaf to her cheek.

I scrambled to my feet and picked up her hand again, more gently this time.

"You have to go home now, it's really late"

I knew it didn't matter what time I went home. My mama would be home when the sun came up, anyways. She'd smell horrible and fall asleep on the couch.

I don't care, it means I get to do what I want.

But she has a family, and her mama and papa would be worried sick.

I tug at her hand a little more, and this time she actually resists a little.

I can tell she is trying hard, but I'm so much stronger than she is, so I tug a little more insistently, she slides off the swing and crumples to the ground.

I kneel down next to her, but she doesn't move, sitting there staring at that little droplet of her blood on the ground, she sits.

I sit next to her, and just watch the slow rise and fall of her back, and the rises turn to shakes as more droplets, clear this time, rolled silently down both cheeks, watering that droplet of red in the sand.

"You can't go home to them, can you?" I say.

She doesn't respond.

I didn't expect her to.

Instead, I crouch on my feet and calmly pick her limp frame up, and she's so light it scares me.

We are the same size, but as I carry her to beneath that shady tree, she feels like a ghost in my arms.

I set her down and take off my jacket, a thick woollen oversized sweater, navy blue; backdrop of the stars from horizon to horizon and I wrap it around her.

She is safe now, but something within me tells me I am not done.

I must keep her safe from them.

I must protect her.

In the early hour before dawn, a small girl, no more than 7, trudges up a dew-coated hill.

In her hair she wears a blue scrunchie, barely containing her silvery hair, and on her left cheek, a crudely drawn jagged line from her eye to her chin, smudges of ink clearly visible on her nose.

She reaches the top of the hill in time to see the first rays of sun flicker across the long blades of grass onto the cheek of a sleeping girl, a dried red trail from her cheek to her chin.

The ink-stained girl watches her for a moment, before moving closer.

From her left hand dangles a small roofing hammer, scarlet liquid coating the steel instrument.

It slips from her fingers, landing in the grass with a quiet thud, a small pool forming around it.

She's next to the smaller girl now, crouching down to brush a strand of hair from her sleeping face.

"Goodmorning, Mahiru."

Her voice is still, eerily calm, and the sleeping girl does not budge.

"I'm Shinya, and we're family now. I even look just like you, see?"

The girl points to her hair and her inky, smudged scar.

"We're the only two Banbas now, Mahiru."

Her smile is teeth, and nothing more. Her eyes are cold and lifeless.

"I hope you don't mind that I took your last name."

She begins humming a familiar tune, hands sliding across the wet grass, wiping away the last of the blood.

"I knew you wouldn't mind."


End file.
